Snooze Fest

[Shugadaddi]

So....if things continue on as they are now, we will see a final four that features The Carolina Hurricanes, The San Jose Sharks, The Buffalo Sabres, and The Mighty Ducks of Anahiem. No Canadian teams....no fun.

They talk about The Pistons and the Spurs hurting ratings for basketball, but this is the worst thing that could have happened for the hockey postseason. Ottawa and Detroit woud have been choice, but 3 expansion teams and a lovable loser in Buffalo is too much to bear.

[Fraserburn]

I think its great
Fudge Ottawa this is what they get for being cocky all year
I love what buffalo is doing to them

i also like watching Carolina i like their style

and dont count Edmonton out yet that series is only 2-1

[Shugadaddi]

Ahhhh....a true Leafs fan....salivating over a playoff swoon by The Senators. It's nice to see that bad blood always bubble to the surface.

I'll admit, it's fantastic to see Buffalo doing so well. However, my motives are slightly slanted because of their goaltender. The wily Michigan Stater, Ryan Miller, is really playing great between the pipes. I always hoped he would do well in the NHL.

I also like Drury. Yes, I know this is strange coming from a Detroiter who watched "Mr. Clutch" help The Avalance dismantle our Wings a decade ago. I just like his grit. He's a true leader on the ice.

[Fraserburn]

Ahhhh....a true Leafs fan....salivating over a playoff swoon by The Senators. It's nice to see that bad blood always bubble to the surface.

I'll admit, it's fantastic to see Buffalo doing so well. However, my motives are slightly slanted because of their goaltender. The wily Michigan Stater, Ryan Miller, is really playing great between the pipes. I always hoped he would do well in the NHL.

I also like Drury. Yes, I know this is strange coming from a Detroiter who watched "Mr. Clutch" help The Avalance dismantle our Wings a decade ago. I just like his grit. He's a true leader on the ice.

THe Ottawa hatred does not come from deep seeded Leaf Love and anguish over 39 years of feces. It comes from my hatred of Ottawa fans.
They get all uppitty about how great their team is and how much they've accomplished and they constantly throw their success in the faces of all challengers. They are like a kid wtih the newest toy on the playgroud "look what i've got" "pay attention to me"

its aggravating and its good to see them get put back in their place by upstart Ryan "USA" Miller. Rhino as i've heard him called is having an outstanding playoff series on top of his great regular season

I sort of feel bad for marty biron who is amazing himself and has to sit and watch

I really feel bad for Tim Connolly and i really hope he can get back in the saddle this series
he is by far my favourite player on that team and he is just getting recognition for his talent after missing an entire year with PCS

[Shugadaddi]

So down to brass tacks....I understand that Ottawa are the northern version of The Red Wings...at least lately...and I get that Carolina has cheap spped that's just too much for the competition. What I don't get is The Mighty Ducks. Where the fuck do they keep finding these goaltenders? Vesa Toskala? C'mon....who's ever heard of this guy?

[Fraserburn]

So down to brass tacks....I understand that Ottawa are the northern version of The Red Wings...at least lately...and I get that Carolina has cheap spped that's just too much for the competition. What I don't get is The Mighty Ducks. Where the fuck do they keep finding these goaltenders? Vesa Toskala? C'mon....who's ever heard of this guy?

I knew who they were.......but then again im Canadian and know everything

I didnt think bryzgalov could do what hes doing though so I cant take credit for that

but as for Toskala.....theres a reason san jose traded Mikka Kipprusoff
and it wasnt because they wanted to help Calgary make a cup run

[H1Man]

The NHL’s postseason drama is badly directed

Not only did the Anaheim Mighty Ducks’ game-seven victory over the Calgary Flames last week burst the bubble of hockey fans in Western Canada who were salivating at the notion of a long-overdue Battle of Alberta, it also served to highlight a baffling double standard the National Hockey League has created for itself.

The NHL sacrificed a season to, among other things, grow the game by promoting geographic rivalries. The league felt that one way to generate excitement and interest in hockey was to up the number of games so-called rivals played against each other during the regular season. As a result, every one of the 30 teams in the NHL plays its four divisional opponents eight times each throughout the year. That’s 32 divisional games, or a substantial 40 percent, of each team’s regular-season schedule.

Now, on the surface, there is nothing wrong with pushing such rivalries and stirring the passions that go along with such battles. In many ways, it’s one of the better ideas to come down from the NHL’s ivory tower. But how can the league put so much stock in regular- season rivalries and then simply turn its back on those same matchups when they matter most: in the playoffs?

Does anyone else find it ridiculous that of the eight first-round series this spring, only one—the New York Rangers versus the New Jersey Devils—was a divisional matchup? And now in the second round, again, just one—the Ottawa Senators against the Buffalo Sabres—is a battle born of regular-season hostilities. So of the initial 12 playoff series in the run to the first post-lockout Stanley Cup, the league has hung its hat on a whole bunch of contests that don’t have mass appeal or marquee value. In other words, the league itself has stamped “who cares?” on most of this postseason.

No one really needed to see the Nashville Predators play the San Jose Sharks in the opening round. In fact, the people of Music City USA weren’t all that interested in that series, as evidenced by the fact the Predators couldn’t sell out game two even after they had won the first game on home ice just two days earlier. However, had the Preds drawn the Detroit Red Wings, their divisional foe, a team they slugged it out with all season and their truest rival, the place would have been packed and the city buzzing.

Look at the matchups involving the four Canadian teams in the opening round of the playoffs: Calgary versus Anaheim, the Edmonton Oilers against Detroit, Ottawa taking on the Tampa Bay Lightning, and Montreal Canadiens facing the Carolina Hurricanes. Although each series managed to produce some decent hockey and a few memorable moments, not one of them captured the imagination the way a Calgary-Edmonton or Montreal-Ottawa series would have.

To be sure, determining the final playoff lineup is out of the hands of the National Hockey League. It sets the regular-season schedule and waits to see what transpires. But for a league scratching and clawing just to get noticed south of the border, why not give the networks and the fans what it’s been claiming they want? Why not rework the playoff structure to promote divisional battles in the opening round? Why not start the playoffs off with a bang?

If this is to be a league based on rivalries, then the NHL simply has no choice but to take the lead of the Western Hockey League and make the first round a battle of divisional opponents. This would require the league to go to two divisions instead of three in each conference, but it seems like the only logical solution.

Fifteen years between Battles of Alberta is too long. Even hockey fans in Vancouver would agree with that. And although the league can’t predetermine a Calgary-Edmonton post-season tilt, it can certainly take steps to increase the chances of such a series occurring.

There are so many good rivalries waiting to happen, but right now it’s because of good fortune, not good planning, that proper teams collide in the postseason. The NHL should be jumping at the chance to have the likes of Calgary-Edmonton, Toronto Maple Leafs– Montreal, Anaheim–Los Angeles Kings, Tampa Bay–Florida Panthers, the Rangers and New York Islanders, Boston Bruins–Buffalo, Pittsburgh Penguins–Philadelphia Flyers, and Detroit–Chicago Blackhawks meet in the opening round.

If the league is intent on having divisional rivals play so many times in the regular season, then it has no choice but to make all of those meetings actually mean something. Take the top four teams in each division and have them meet in the first round and then reseed from there so the good teams still maintain home-ice advantage into round two and beyond.

As it stands right now, if San Jose and Anaheim advance here in round two, or Colorado and Edmonton come out on top in their second-round meetings, then the league will luck into an all-divisional Western Conference final. But the way it has played out in the East, there is no chance of that happening, leaving the NHL with the possibility of having just three of its 17 postseason matchups feature the very rivalries the league is trying so hard to promote.

Ask anyone in the game and they’ll tell you that a rivalry is created in—and only in—the playoffs, with two teams going at it shift after shift, night after night, for as many as seven games. That’s exactly how rivalries come to be. The NHL can force the Canucks to play Minnesota 50 times a year if it wants, but what’s gained and who is served by that?

The whole idea of creating rivalries and marketing them to the fans has plenty of merit. But don’t stop halfway. If the National Hockey League is serious about generating interest for the best spectacle in sports—the Stanley Cup playoffs—it has to find a way to carry the bad blood, and good hockey, into the spring.

Otherwise, it’s going to get what it deserves and what it has right now: Colorado versus Anaheim or the New Jersey Devils facing Carolina. They may all be good teams, but the matchups are hardly as compelling as they could have been.

But what should we expect from a league that thinks it knows best and yet so often acts as if it doesn’t know at all?

http://www.straight.com/content.cfm?id=17714